| CHICAGO'S BIG IN NEW YORK... BUT ARE WE BIG HERE, TOO?
by Jason Loewith on 5/13/2008 02:33:00 PM
Awards season has hit in New York and it looks an awful like the Jeff Awards in the fall... the Tony nominations, announced earlier today, honored AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY from Steppenwolf with seven nods, and Chicago Shakespeare Theatre will be walking away with the Regional Theater Award. As Chris Jones notes in his blog, CST is the fourth Chicago theater to win the prestigious award, making our city the best-recognized of any nationally by the Tony Committee.
Of course, ADDING MACHINE: A MUSICAL is off-Broadway scooping up handfuls of awards and nominations for Chicago artists - four Lucille Lortel Awards, two Outer Critic Circle Awards, nine Drama Desk nominations, and a mysterious invite to the OBIE Awards on Monday (we're not eligible for the Tonys because we're off-Broadway... but we're not bitter!). But let's not forget Writers Theatre's extraordinary success with CRIME & PUNISHMENT last fall at 59E59 Theatres, the Hypocrites in the same venue, and on and on... this is the kind of season Chicago theater should be having every year.
My only fear about all this hype, though, is that we might lose sight of what makes Chicago theater so wonderful, and why we all love making work here: because we make work for our community. Unlike LA - where people do theater to get into film - and NY - where people do theater to make Broadway cash and film deals - we do theater in Chicago for our neighborhoods, our communities and our audience. We do it because we like having a conversation with our patrons about what's important to them. We celebrate our city through our work. Let's just remember that we don't need to go anywhere else to prove it. If the work travels elsewhere, that's wonderful; but let's not aim to travel. Let's aim to be of service to our community first.
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On dying city: penetrating , provacative and intertwined with enigmatic elements AQ definite must see
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